


Pedestal

by angel_deux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also Jaime Lannister and the Necessity of Therapy?, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, ex almosts is the best way to describe this fic I think, or maybe 'the concept of someone deserving someone else is kinda bad'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Three years ago, Jaime moved to Dorne for a job opportunity. He also moved to Dorne because he was running from the best person in his life, because he didn't believe that he deserved her. Now he's back.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 23
Kudos: 205
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	Pedestal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Virareve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virareve/gifts).



> Bonus fic for you, Virareve!

It had only been three years since he’d last stepped foot in Westeros, but Jaime found that it felt like longer. It wasn’t like Dorne was so different, really, aside from all the sand, and Jaime had lived in Westeros all his life, excepting the past three years, so he wasn’t sure _why_ he felt so strangely unbalanced, walking through the airport. Maybe it was just that being back here reminded him of the day he left. Miserable, hungover, feeling like a coward as he fled from the best person in his life in some kind of masochistic attempt to punish himself since she wouldn’t do the punishing for him.

The job offer in Dorne had been the final straw, but things had been building for a while, and it turned an otherwise unimpressive opportunity into a chance he just couldn’t miss. Excuse enough to leave behind his friends and loved ones and start over somewhere new, at least until he could sort his shit out.

He’d been feeling cagey in the days leading up to Doran Martell’s call. Cagey and sort of desperate, because he had bared his soul to Brienne. Told her everything. And she had looked him in the eyes and told him that it didn’t matter what he had done in his past. It didn’t change the way she thought of him. He hadn’t been able to accept that.

He had expected Brienne to drive him away after his revelations. Sneer at him in disgust. Call him a monster. He’d spent most of his young adult life doing anything his sister had asked of him, and that included some things that he knew he would go to his grave regretting, but Brienne refused to regret them with him. He hadn’t been sure, at the time, why he’d wanted her to hate him so badly, but after three years of distance and a hell of a lot of therapy, he thought he had a better handle on his instinct to self-sabotage.

_I don’t deserve her_. That was what it had been. He’d thought, in the initial aftermath, as he was settling in to his new apartment in Dorne, that most of it was just _fear_. He had even said the words to her: _I don’t deserve you_. But it wasn’t until much later that he realized how true that was. Fear made more sense. He could explain the fear without doing too much digging. He’d never been so close to happiness with someone, and he had been afraid. That night when he had almost kissed her, almost allowed himself to think that there was a chance at real _love_ with her, his instinct to run had kicked in. When Doran called the following day to make an offer that even _he_ didn’t seem to expect Jaime to take, it had seemed like a sign. Not that Jaime believed in signs, or portents, or anything but the decisions that people made, but the idea of it being a _sign_ was easier to swallow than the truth: he was just behaving like a coward.

He told everyone, told _Brienne_ , that it was an exciting opportunity, like he really gave a shit about advancing his career. Most of them seemed happy for him. Even Brienne seemed happy for him. But their goodbyes had been tepid at best, and she didn’t bother to reach out once he’d left, and that meant that she knew what he was doing.

Running.

_I’m protecting her_ , he had thought, more than once. _She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t deserve to be tied to a man like me. She’s too naïve._ It strengthened his resolve in those moments when he found himself weakening enough to almost call her, or text her, or fucking email her, or something.

In the end, it was Brienne who bridged the gap between them, but she never bridged it much. He could never tell if she was afraid for her own sake, or if she was just being gentle with him. Liking some photos he posted on social media. Replying to him in group texts with their friends. Never privately. Never one-on-one. Just gentle prods. Reminders that she was still there. Maybe reminders that she didn’t hate him.

_I’ll come back when I’m better_ , he had told her, that last night. _When I’ve exorcised her influence completely_. What a grandiose asshole he’d been about it. That had been the start of the new year. They’d been at a party at Robb Stark’s apartment, and Brienne’s expression had been grim and mostly blank. She had not said a single word in reply. Just nodded, and he knew that she didn’t believe him.

_You should stay,_ she had said, just minutes earlier, before he’d pulled her into the other room, and kissed her on the cheek instead of the mouth, and told her _why_ he had to leave. She hadn’t argued with him after that. She hadn’t spoken a single other word to him. So it was just _you should stay_ , for three years, ringing over and over again in his mind, like a mantra. It changed to _you should have stayed_ at one point, and it drove him nearly mad, a giddy reminder that he’d been a fool to think he could escape his past so cleanly.

* * *

He was back, now, and he’d never been so frightened.

His feet dragged as he made his way towards the exit, but he put on a cheery face to greet the welcome party. The Starks were out front, Sansa and Robb, Sansa waving a little _Jaime’s Home!_ sign while Robb chatted with Jaime’s oldest friend, Addam Marbrand. Jaime had expected Addam, given that Addam had offered to drive Jaime to his new place, but the Starks were a bit of a surprise. His throat clogged with emotion. He had missed them. Texts and calls and the occasional visits weren’t the same as living in the same city as the people you cared about.

“Jaime!” Sansa cried when she spotted him, waving him over like there was a chance he hadn’t seen. Jaime marshalled himself and headed towards them. If there was one thing that he excelled at, it was pretending at being fine when he wasn’t, and so it was no problem to put on a mask and greet his friends happily, as if he didn’t still feel wretched for leaving in the first place.

The three of them drove him back to his new apartment, which had already been somewhat neatly unpacked thanks to Bronn’s weakness for wads of cash and the promise of his tab at the bar being paid for the next month. Robb and Addam, who made it _hilariously_ obvious that they were following a script planned by Sansa, quickly fucked off to go get some takeout for the three of them, and then it was just Jaime and Sansa alone. Perfect for her interrogation. 

“This is from mum,” Sansa said. She had a cool, clear voice that always managed to sound both reassuring and confrontational at once, and it didn’t help that Jaime knew that she was about to be both things, probably. She handed over a large bag that was practically overflowing with tissue paper, and he felt emotional again. He had worked for Catelyn for years before taking the assignment in Dorne. She’d been the only person brave enough to take on Tywin Lannister and let Jaime work for her. Everyone else had been too frightened; Jaime’s attempt to leave his family’s influence had been a rather graceless one, and Tywin had done whatever he could to try and make sure that Jaime couldn’t escape them entirely. If not for Catelyn—if not for meeting _Brienne_ because of Catelyn—he probably would have been drawn back in eventually.

“I’ll call her tomorrow,” Jaime said. The good thing about Catelyn Stark was that they had known each other for long enough that they didn’t need to say too many of the big things. She’d clearly understood why he was leaving, and she clearly understood why he wanted to come back. But thanks were still in order, in any case. He wasn’t looking forward to having to deliver them. He’d changed a bit in his three years away, hopefully for the better, but he hadn’t changed _that_ much.

“Spill, then,” Sansa said. Like her mother, she had a calm collectedness that made him want to tell her everything _._

“Which part?”

“I know why you left,” she said. “Brienne told me.”

That made Jaime feel a bit weightless, actually.

“What did she tell you?” he asked.

“She said that you hated yourself too much to accept anything good happening. That you ran away because you couldn’t face it. Basically that you were being a huge drama queen.”

“I…well. She wasn’t all wrong. I was always planning on coming back. I just thought…I just thought I needed to find something, first.”

“Find what?”

“I don’t know. Answers. Or _myself_. Don’t look at me like that. I know it was stupid.”

She grinned at him, but there was something sad in her expression that made him feel cornered.

“What changed your mind?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Therapy, maybe. Maybe just time. Being outside it long enough that I started to understand it.”

“All very vague answers.”

“I know. I gave my therapist more concrete ones, I promise.” When she made a quiet noise of understanding, for some reason that made him want to tell her more. “What I wanted was impossible. I’m never going to be able to get away from it. It’s still my past, no matter what. Those things I did for Cersei, the man I let myself become, he existed. He was a part of me, and he’s _still_ a part of me. He always will be. I can’t exorcise him completely, any more than I can exorcise her, or the rest of them. I’m a Lannister. I’ll always _be_ a Lannister. I could run to the farthest reaches and change my name and live the rest of my life as some better man, but that doesn’t change who I was. So I might as well be myself, in the place I want to be. I wasn’t escaping Cersei by running away from everything good in my life. I was just letting her keep control of me, but in a different way. Believing the things she always told me about myself. I thought I’d outgrown it, but I hadn’t. I thought I’d left her and the rest of the family behind, but they’d been haunting me the whole time. It just took a few years in Dorne for me to realize it.”

Sansa was beaming at him when he finished, and when she said, “I’m really proud of you, Jaime,” he felt the impact of that in his chest. Silly of him, maybe, to value the opinion of someone so much younger than him, but he had heard those words precious few times in his life.

“Thank you,” he said.

His father and brother hadn’t been happy with him for leaving Westeros in the first place. They’d wanted him to return to the family business, and Tyrion had reached out with an offer for significantly more money than Jaime would be making in Dorne, but Jaime had turned his brother down. He was sick of both of them, and sick of Cersei, and sick even of the outliers. Lancel and Uncle Kevan and even Aunt Genna, sometimes, the way she could be so loyal to such a deeply sick family. Family had been everything to him once, and he had allowed it to warp him. Twist him and bend him to a man he had never wanted to be. Tyrion and Tywin would be even _less_ happy that he’d returned to Westeros only to immediately start working for Catelyn again, but Jaime felt so far removed from their opinions that he didn’t much care.

He missed Tyrion, sometimes. He missed Cersei, too, and their father, and the security that came with knowing that there was always a net beneath you, ready to catch you if you fell. A net that could often feel more like a pit of spikes, sure, but a net all the same. Tywin would have done anything to make sure that his children were successful, even if that meant stifling them and controlling them and turning them against him until they wanted to die, and Tyrion was turning out to be the same sort of person. It was power they wanted. All three of them, though they presented themselves in such different ways that they couldn’t recognize how similar they were. They all hated each other perhaps equally, but they couldn’t escape each other, either. Endlessly circling, searching for weaknesses, striking and defending and striking again. It was endless. Inescapable. Jaime had escaped it by some combination of luck and desperation, and he did not want to go back, but there were still times when he missed it. Not the constant betrayals and confusions and their combined cruelty, but the softer moments when they made him think that they loved him the way he loved them. It was nice to have a family. Nice to have people you would do anything for, though Jaime had come to understand that his instinct to throw himself between the people he loved and any harm wasn’t a healthy one.

“Brienne,” he finally said, when the silence had stretched between he and Sansa for long enough. Sansa smiled at him.

“She’ll be at the bar tonight,” she said. “For your welcome home party.”

Jaime nodded; he suddenly could not think of anything to say.

* * *

It had been _their_ bar when Jaime was still living in Westeros, and he was pathetically glad that that hadn’t changed. Nothing about it had changed, actually. It had the same slightly battered bar and worn-in vinyl booths. The same shitty billiards table, the green felt top rubbed greyish and thin in places. More than the airport, more than the new apartment, _this_ was the first time he truly felt like he had come home.

He entered the bar just behind Robb to a chorus of cheers from his friends. Some, like Brienne and Podrick, he’d met at work. Some, like Margaery, Loras, and Renly, he’d met through his family connections, and hung out with regularly after leaving the Lannisters behind. Some, like Bronn and Ilyn, were acquaintances of unknown origin who nonetheless had become a part of the group. And then there was Daven, the other fuckup Lannister, who had managed to escape a little after Jaime had, and who had thereafter become his friend out of some kind of mutual pride and spite.

They were all happy to see him, offering hugs and handshakes and slaps on the back. He was handed drink after drink. He was asked a million questions. All through it, he tried to catch Brienne’s eye for longer than a few seconds at a time, but it seemed impossible. She did not avoid it, but she joined other conversations, or listened actively, her head moving from person to person as she watched whoever was speaking. It was just like the way she had begun to interact on social media: distant. _There_ but not there. A reminder that she existed. A reminder that they were friends. But nothing more than that.

He knew that she didn’t like to show her affections in front of other people. Their group of friends was large, and varied, and _loud_ , and so he could hardly blame her for wanting to keep to herself a little bit. But it made him nervous, even so, because there had been times, back when they were getting closer the first time, when he thought that she understood him, or understood what he was saying, only for her to get it entirely wrong. He tried to remember that last night, when they’d almost kissed. He tried to remember what he’d said, and what she had said in return. Was it possible she hadn’t understood?

Or maybe she _did_ understand, and she had grown tired of waiting. He couldn’t say that he blamed her, in that case. She’d waited for him far longer than he…well. He was trying not to think of things like that anymore. _Deserved_ was not a helpful word, and it was a word he had been trying to unlearn.

At one point, in the middle of all the questions, Brienne’s head turned towards him, and he could see her sizing him up.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked quietly. Her voice was deep as ever, and steady as ever, and Jaime had missed it. He met her eyes, and she didn’t look away, and he had missed _them_ , too. _Them_ being her eyes and _them_ being the two of them, Jaime and Brienne.

“No,” he answered. “That’s why I came back.”

He wasn’t sure she understood _that_ , either. He would be surprised if she did. She would need him to explain it. But though her brow furrowed, and though she looked a touch confused, she nodded anyway, and it felt like trust.

* * *

When they first met, they hadn’t much liked each other. Brienne was younger than him, but she felt like his equal most of the time, and she felt like his better often enough to cause him to grind his teeth together. There was something self-righteous and good about her that he had found obnoxious and boring somehow in equal measure, and at first he had taken pleasure in the fact that she grew more jaded and less naïve as they continued to work together. The realities of life and work and the inherent shittiness of corporate lifestyle got to her. They were lucky to work for Catelyn Stark, who was a good boss and who did good work, but that didn’t keep things from feeling dehumanizing from time to time. After a while, Jaime realized that he didn’t like Brienne’s frown, or her tired sighs, or the bleak way she’d look at him when she would realize that there was no good solution, and he felt like he was watching his own coming of age reflected in this young woman who deserved better.

They’d become friends, somehow. He still couldn’t quite remember why. Or maybe it wasn’t any one reason, but a bunch of smaller ones, adding up. And it was a quick jump, in the end, from friendship to love, at least on Jaime’s side. Brienne, he was sure, took longer, because she tended to be more pragmatic about admitting these things to herself, while Jaime’s problem was almost always obliviousness rather than resistance.

The feelings had been mutual. Jaime was sure enough of that. But it had not taken long at all for him to question himself. Not because he was uncertain about how he felt for Brienne, or how Brienne felt for him, but because he wasn’t sure that it was something he deserved. _Deserved_. That poisonous word. She was a good person, Brienne. She was the kind of good person he had wanted to be, as a boy, when he imagined growing up and becoming somebody noble and brave. Somebody who helped people. It wasn’t just Cersei who had bled that out of him, but she had been the start. He would have done anything to please his twin, and the things that she wanted done were often immoral at best. Illegal _and_ immoral at worst. Their father and Tyrion had wanted their own things, and Jaime had provided them as best he could, because he knew that he was not meant to be the mastermind of any of these plans. He didn’t _want_ to be. Perhaps it was a way of swearing off responsibility. Acting like the fact that he didn’t come up with any of these ideas meant that he somehow wasn’t culpable for them. But it simmered there, waiting. Taunting him and reminding him that though he was trying to be a better man, he would always have to remember that he had been that worse man first.

He’d shoved that guilt and shame deep down within himself for as long as he could, but Brienne brought it out. Not by doing anything in particular, so it was a slow process. Rising up within him like bile. Choking him when he tried to think of moving forward with Brienne, happy and in love, while his past lived within him and taunted him and haunted him.

He told Brienne everything. Every sordid detail. Every bit of shame he carried.

She told him that it didn’t matter.

How? How could she not see that he was not the good man that she wanted him to be? He couldn’t be that good man. Not after all the hateful things he had done. His family had poisoned him, and he had drank it all gleefully, knowing very well what was in the glass, but pretending that he didn’t. He could not lie to himself anymore, and he couldn’t lie to her, either. And so he ran, like a coward, thinking that it was almost an act of bravery. Saving her if she would not save herself.

* * *

Jaime was glad when the attention moved off him as the partygoers got steadily drunker. Bronn and Pod and Ilyn started playing some kind of modified billiards game, doing the best they could with the few balls that were left to the old table. The rest of their friends gradually joined in, watching and cheering and trying to figure out the rules. Brienne met Jaime’s eyes before she slipped out into the night, and Jaime waited only a few moments before following her. He wondered if she would care if the others noticed. He didn’t think so, but everything about Brienne was making him nervous tonight. Three years was a long time to go without speaking to someone. It felt like longer. And yet it felt like less, too. Being at this bar. Seeing this group of people. Seeing _her_ , sitting just where he’d imagined her, in the same seat in the same booth she always used to sit at when they came here together. He’d dreamed of her plenty when he was gone, and seeing her again was a reminder of all the things he’d loved when he’d left. But there was none of that old panic. The choking feeling was gone. It still felt like running had been a shit thing to do. Another sin to add to the tally. But he would defend himself if he had to: he’d needed to do it. He hadn’t been ready, before.

She was leaning back against the front of the building when he got outside. She wasn’t pretending to do anything but wait for him, and her eyes were already on him as he came through the door. She had her hands shoved into her jacket pockets. A new jacket. Black. It looked good on her. Fit her broad shoulders and her strong arms. She was just as he had spent three years remembering, except she was here. Better than remembered. Real.

“Are you ready to tell me?” she asked. He moved to stand in front of her. He nodded. His throat was dry. He suddenly felt very sober. In the cold air, and facing down the woman he ran from, the three drinks he’d enjoyed inside seemed like nothing.

“Why I ran?” he asked.

“I have my own ideas.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Prickly. She was still prickly, and defensive, and irritated. He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t, because he knew she wouldn’t like that. It wouldn’t have been a mocking laugh, anyway. It would have been pure joy. He wished she had any idea how good it felt to be beside her again.

“You were always good at coming up with reasons for peoples’ behavior. You were usually wrong.”

“I wouldn’t have had to come up with reasons for anything if you’d have just _told_ me why you left.”

“I did,” he reminded her weakly.

“What you said didn’t make sense.”

“Of course it didn’t. Why would you understand? You’ve never done anything to be ashamed of.”

“Of _course_ I have, Jaime. I’m _human_.”

“No, I know. I said that wrong. That’s part of the problem. I’ve always…you know me.”

“I do.”

He was absurdly grateful that she had not said _I did_ , as he had briefly been sure she would.

“I have always judged everyone else by my own sins, and my own sins more harshly than anything.”

“I know. I _always_ knew that.”

“I know you did.”

“Then why did you leave? I would have given you space. Or understood. But you _left_.”

He could see the raw hurt that he knew she had not wanted to show. But she was practical, Brienne. Always had been. Practical and _smart_ about these things, and so she had walked out here to wait for him, both because she had known he would follow and because she had known that there would be a chance that she would be unable to bottle the hurt like she wanted to, and she did not want their friends to see.

Her voice cracked on the last word. _Left_. Jaime hated it.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I’m back now.”

“You’re back _for_ now.”

“I’m back for good.”

“How am I supposed to trust that, Jaime?” she asked, and it was a good point, and a good question. He hated that, too, that she was so right about him. He knew her well. He knew how difficult it was for her to trust. He’d had a hard enough time earning it the first time, and that was before he had shown her that he was a flight risk.

“I’m done running,” he said. He could see from her expression that her next words would probably be incredulous, maybe annoyed, so he hastened to say, “I know it’s easy to claim, and not quite as easy to prove.”

“I’m not asking you to _prove_ anything. I’m just…” But she stopped, because she couldn’t finish, because of course she was asking him to prove it. She hated to be presumptuous, though. She hated expressing the things she wanted, because she was never sure if it was too much to ask. He still knew how she worked. It was a relief, even though it was something that used to cause him so much frustration, the fact that she couldn’t just _tell him_ what she wanted.

“You should. Before you let me back into your life, you _should_ want proof. I left you, and I shouldn’t have. You’re owed a lot. Apologies. Explanations.”

“I’m _not_. I don’t want those things. I just…I just want to know you’re not going to do it again.”

“I’m not,” he said. Perhaps too quickly, because she frowned at him, and plainly did not believe him.

“You said you didn’t find what you were looking for.”

“I didn’t. Because I was looking for the wrong thing.” She was waiting, not offering anything else. Not accusing him or asking of him or prompting him. He had always hated speaking his real feelings. His thoughts, his whims, any random thing that came into his head…that was easy. He could speak all day about nothing, as his friends well knew. But the things that got into his core…those were more difficult. And it was more difficult especially with Brienne, who was as reticent to share herself as _he_ was, so it often felt as if they were locked in an emotional stand-off. Waiting for the other person to speak first. “Denial has always worked for me,” he tried. Brienne just stared at him some more. “Denying who I am, and who I was. I denied myself happiness for years because I thought I could only find it with my family. Doing whatever my sister needed of me. Helping my brother in his schemes. Making my father proud. I didn’t care about the state of my soul, because I didn’t believe it mattered. Family, _my_ family, was what mattered. Without you, I would have gone back to them eventually.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, but he shook his head.

“I do. Believe me. Three years of relearning myself. That’s exactly what I would have done. I needed them. _Thought_ I needed them. I had done so many shitty things for them that I needed to believe that they were worth it. Otherwise, what had it all been for? I would have had to face up to it, and I didn’t want to. So, like I said. Denial. But I met you, and you made me want to be different. Or, not different. You made me want to be someone I used to think I was. The person that, in my denial, I convinced myself I _could_ be. Better.”

“Jaime,” Brienne said, and she sounded sad, and a little bit shocked, so he hastened to keep going.

“But I got scared. So I told you everything, so that you would see who I was.”

“But I didn’t run,” she said. “So you ran instead.”

“I thought you would,” he admitted. “I thought you would hear one-tenth of my stories about what I did, and you’d cut me out of your life. I thought that was the answer. The _only_ way out.”

“You could have just _told_ me that you wanted out.”

“But I didn’t. That was the problem.” He sighed, and she sighed with him, equally frustrated.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. That was fair enough, because he didn’t understand either, really.

“When you were kind about it, I knew I had to be the one to make the decision. I told you what I’d done, I told you the person I had the capacity to be, and you took it in stride. I didn’t think you should. So I thought, if you wouldn’t protect yourself, then I would protect you. I thought it was a noble thing to do. I didn’t think beyond that. Your safety. What you deserved. You don’t need to say anything to that. I can see you winding up to it, and I know already that it was idiotic. I was so sure that I didn’t deserve you, and that I was going to ruin you, and that you should run as far away from me as you could, so I made the choice to run instead.”

“Idiotic, you said?” Brienne asked, and he laughed. It came out weaker than he wanted it to.

“I could have tried to explain it to you. I don’t think I’d have done a good job of it. I’m not doing a very good job of it _now_ , and I had the benefit of a great therapist in Dorne. But at the time…I was just afraid.”

“Of me? Or of what you thought you would do to me?”

“The second one,” he said. Grateful that she understood.

“Load of rubbish,” she muttered.

“I know.”

“Do you _still_ think that?” she asked. Her arms were crossed across her chest now, defensive. Irritated with him. “That you don’t _deserve_ me?”

“I suppose on some level, I do,” he admitted quietly. He could see she was ready to fight him on _that_ , too, so he hastened to add, “but I don’t think it’s about that anymore. I don’t think it’s about _worth_ , or deserving. I think I put you on a pedestal that you never asked to be on. That was unfair of me, and it wasn’t right. It was like you were two people. You were my friend. The woman I cared about. You were the person who could make me laugh more than anyone else, even if half the time it was by accident. You were frustrating and irritating and stubborn, and I cared for you anyway. But you were also this…I don’t know. Ideal. I built you up as this naïve innocent, because I wanted to believe you were worth more than me. I half worshipped you for that, I think, because you were the opposite of what my family was. I shouldn’t have put that burden on you, whether or not you knew it was there. And I shouldn’t have put that burden on myself, of living up to it. I should have done a lot of things differently, but I don’t know if I would have realized how fucked up my thinking was if I never left. Maybe I would have figured myself out eventually. Maybe you would have managed to talk some sense into me eventually.”

“Maybe,” Brienne said. “But I was very young.”

“Three whole years ago.”

“Shut up. You know what I mean. I _was_ naïve. It was one of the last things you said to me before you left, and I know you were right. Maybe not in the same way you meant it, but…I had a lot to learn. I put you on a pedestal too, you know.”

“I knew that, though.”

“You did?”

“Mm. For a while.”

“Well _that’s_ humiliating.”

“No it isn’t. I thought it was nice. Everyone in my family was always so good at hiding their true feelings from me. Being able to see someone so clearly was refreshing. See? I’m doing it again. Comparing you to them. It’s a work in progress.”

She shakes her head. There’s amusement for him, but it’s flickering, and reluctant.

“I was heartbroken when you left,” she finally admits.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I imagined you would be. And Sansa let enough hints slip. If she thought it was so bad that you couldn’t handle it, I would have come back.”

“I thought…I thought maybe you would have. I wanted that, sometimes. But it would have felt pathetic. So I got better at hiding it.”

His heart cracked a bit at that, but he took comfort in how sturdy she seemed now. She wasn’t flustered by him, or overwhelmed by him. She didn’t leave to stand outside the bar because she wanted to escape him; she came out here to await him, because she knew he would follow. She was heartbroken when he left, just as he was heartbroken to do it, but she had healed. What that meant for them going forward, he didn’t know, but he thought he was big enough to be glad for her no matter what the answer turned out to be.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again.

“I know you are. I knew you were sorry the moment you made the decision. I didn’t think you’d ever come back, though. I thought that was a pretty lie you told everyone so you didn’t have to explain why you were running. You said you didn’t deserve me, and I let you go, even though I thought it was ridiculous. I didn’t think that was a wound that could heal, the way you hated yourself.”

“I wasn’t sure it was either.”

“But it drove me... I thought… I _know_ you almost kissed me that night. I talked myself out of it half a dozen times, but I know I’m right. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive you for running after that. I thought, even if you _did_ come back, I’d ignore you. Change my number. Change my locks. Get a new job. Maybe I’d be the one to run away this time.”

“But you didn’t,” he said. Almost to reassure himself.

“I didn’t. I don’t know when I forgave you. But I must have, at some point. I knew I’d never really understand until you told me. _If_ you told me. But I’ve always known that you had these things inside you that you never expressed. Traumas you never addressed. I told you to go to therapy _years_ ago.”

“I remember. That’s what made me start going, once I got to Dorne.”

“You always tried to do everything yourself.”

“It’s the Lannister way. Lannisters don’t need to talk to people about their problems, you see. We just suppress things until they come back years later as a terrible personality flaw.”

“That certainly explains Tyrion.”

“It really does.”

Brienne cracked a smile, then, and she looked down at him with a fondness he didn’t think he’d ever see on her face again. She was dimly lit by the neon blue light from the sign above the bar, and it made her look taller, and sturdier, and stronger than he remembered. He had once felt so safe with her, until he felt too much and it frightened him. He was reminded of that safety now, and it felt almost in reach. Like he could find it, if he tried.

“Three weeks ago,” she said. Slow and deliberate, like they were words she needed to say but had to build up the courage to say them. “Sansa told me that you were coming back. Catelyn told her that you were considering it, and Sansa _knew_ that you would, because she’s Sansa.”

“Because she’s Sansa,” Jaime agreed.

“I was seeing this guy. Hyle. He was fine. There was nothing really _wrong_ with him. We had an ugly past, but he grew up into a decent enough man. I went home from the bar the night Sansa told me you were coming back, and I called him, and I broke it off.” Jaime could not quite handle the look in her eyes. The intensity of it. Daring him to listen to her, and believe her, and understand. “I realized that night that I had been waiting for you to come back, and that it wasn’t fair to Hyle not to be honest with him about it. It’s been you. Always. Maybe I _did_ know you’d be back, or maybe I just hoped. I don’t know.”

“For what it’s worth,” Jaime said quietly. “I know exactly how I feel. And it hasn’t changed at all.”

“Not everything is a competition,” Brienne snapped back. There was something a little testy and teasing in her tone. Willing to head back into companionable territory. Willing to wait. But Jaime didn’t want her to have to wait any longer. He didn’t want to wait any longer either.

“I know it’s not,” he said. “I just want you to know your options. I’m not perfect. I’m still the same man. I know myself a little better now, but it’s not done. I’m not going to run again, but I can’t promise I’m going to be very easy. There’s still a lot of work for me to do. I might never feel like I deserve it. I hope I will, one day. But I can’t promise that. If you…”

“I know,” Brienne said. She uncrossed her arms. She stood up taller. She looked so familiar. So achingly the same. “I understand. You were my friend first, and I hope you’ll be my friend still, now that you’re back. But I would be all the rest, too. If you’d let me. If you’re ready.”

Her tone promised nothing in retribution if he wasn’t. It promised no mockery or cruelty or disappointment. _If you’re ready_ promised a pause if he needed it. She was so good. Not _too_ good. Not perfect. She got defensive and was too quick to believe people who should not be believed. She had a stubborn code of honor that occasionally led her to make mistakes because it blinded her to the truth. She was prickly, and defensive. He could not put her on a pedestal again, because he saw all of her now in a way he didn’t before. And he saw himself, too. He saw that he was not just vile. Not just his past. He was compassionate. He was funny. He was charming, and he didn’t like to lie, unless it was for a good reason. He was loyal to his friends, and he would do _anything_ , no matter the consequences to himself, if he thought that it was the right thing to do. Maybe he still didn’t think it was enough. Maybe he still didn’t think that the sum total of his parts added up to _a good person_ the way that Brienne’s did. But he could see the shape of it, now, off in the distance. He hadn’t been able to see it even slightly before.

“I’m ready,” he promised. And he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Virareve's prompt was: [fill in blank] amount of years ago, Jaime lef Brienne behind in Westeros to take a job overseas in order to deal with the demons of his relationship with Cersei and his past, with the promise made on New Years Eve that when he came back he wants to be able to be with her without all the baggage and bad timing that influenced them before he left. Now that he’s back, how will things be between the two?


End file.
